Coming on a Bicycle:Znuh: In before the farkers yelling that CPR is only 1% effective, etc. etc.

It is. But that's because 90% of all CPR takes place in hospitals on people who have no hope anyway.

Erm, no. I don't mean to sound condescending here, but that's not why. The reason people say that is because when the mass media releases stories about how CPR doesn't work, they release stories that uses statistics that combine cardiac arrests that have a high level of survival with immediate bystander CPR, with things like Traumatic Cardiac arrests from massive blunt trauma and exsanguination, which have a <1% chance of survival. They also lump people in who no one touched for 10-15 minutes, and people who were unwitnessed arrests who had been down for unknown time lengths.

In hospital cardiac arrest survival is >50% because of the ready availability of advanced care.

In reality, if you suffer a primarily cardiac cause of cardiac arrest in a community where someone witnesses you doing so, and immediately begins CPR and activates EMS, you have a 20-50% chance of walking out of the hospital intact depending on the system you live in. That's why there is such a push to get laypeople trained on CPR. For all our advanced tools and equipment, we can't do jack shiat without Joe Averageguy deciding to step up and act to keep someone alive until we can get there, give our drugs and use our Magical Defibrillator, and rush someone to the cath lab table and begin therapeutic hypothermia.

In children and infants, they have a high rate of survival if their airways and respiration are adequately and immediately managed - since these are the most common reasons a kid arrests. This is why children still receive regular CPR, and not hands-only.

While CPR does NOT work like it is shown on TV, it does work, and it's the best chance for someone to survive and walk out of a hospital.

hardinparamedic:Coming on a Bicycle: Znuh: In before the farkers yelling that CPR is only 1% effective, etc. etc.

It is. But that's because 90% of all CPR takes place in hospitals on people who have no hope anyway.

Erm, no. I don't mean to sound condescending here, but that's not why. The reason people say that is because when the mass media releases stories about how CPR doesn't work, they release stories that uses statistics that combine cardiac arrests that have a high level of survival with immediate bystander CPR, with things like Traumatic Cardiac arrests from massive blunt trauma and exsanguination, which have a <1% chance of survival. They also lump people in who no one touched for 10-15 minutes, and people who were unwitnessed arrests who had been down for unknown time lengths.

In hospital cardiac arrest survival is >50% because of the ready availability of advanced care.

In reality, if you suffer a primarily cardiac cause of cardiac arrest in a community where someone witnesses you doing so, and immediately begins CPR and activates EMS, you have a 20-50% chance of walking out of the hospital intact depending on the system you live in. That's why there is such a push to get laypeople trained on CPR. For all our advanced tools and equipment, we can't do jack shiat without Joe Averageguy deciding to step up and act to keep someone alive until we can get there, give our drugs and use our Magical Defibrillator, and rush someone to the cath lab table and begin therapeutic hypothermia.

In children and infants, they have a high rate of survival if their airways and respiration are adequately and immediately managed - since these are the most common reasons a kid arrests. This is why children still receive regular CPR, and not hands-only.

While CPR does NOT work like it is shown on TV, it does work, and it's the best chance for someone to survive and walk out of a hospital.

Dictatorial_Flair:That. A lot of people who are CPR'd should have been a DNR already because they're practically dead, but they aren't for various reasons.

There are also a lot of people lingering in nursing homes, shoved there by their families to be kept alive far after their mind is gone and their body is riddled with pressure sores and muscle contractures by a feeding tube, that they'll come visit maybe once a year on Christmas to convince themselves they didn't abandon mom and dad after all.

People who, for some ODD reason, the families still think they need to be a full code. Because, we can't let grandma and grandpa go peacefully.

hardinparamedic:Dictatorial_Flair: That. A lot of people who are CPR'd should have been a DNR already because they're practically dead, but they aren't for various reasons.

There are also a lot of people lingering in nursing homes, shoved there by their families to be kept alive far after their mind is gone and their body is riddled with pressure sores and muscle contractures by a feeding tube, that they'll come visit maybe once a year on Christmas to convince themselves they didn't abandon mom and dad after all.

People who, for some ODD reason, the families still think they need to be a full code. Because, we can't let grandma and grandpa go peacefully.

I get to meet a lot of them when they finally get septic, it's usually very sad. I hate helping send people to the nursing homes around here, most of them are terrible.

ArkAngel:I thought CPR for an infant dictated putting your mouth over both their nose and mouth, not plugging the nose. Get it together boys

Knowing CPR is not a requirement for saving a life. The training tells you the best way to get it done, but if you blow air in and squeeze the heart, you'll still do better than nobody doin' nothin'. You're even exempt from lawsuits, unless you push a trained person away (between breaths, ask the crowd for any that's trained). These guys did what needed to be done. They are heroes, even if their technique was a little ragged. My 'ats off to them.

Znuh:In before the farkers yelling that CPR is only 1% effective, etc. etc.

Yeah an anecdote about CPR working once proves it works every time.

The baby didn't even need CPR in the first place. The mother said the baby had been acting "off that day" and "kind of unresponsive to my smile" whatever that means. Then seconds after CPR was started he began screaming. If someone wakes up "seconds later" it's not because you started their heart again, it's because CPR hurts really bad. All she did was wake up her sleeping baby in a very violent way.

Nobody else finds it odd that there's no mention of what the supposed cause was?

Oh and the reason CPR is claimed to "not work" is that it rarely does anything to fix the underlying issue that caused cardiac arrest in the first place. It works to get your heart pumping and that is all. If you have a blood clot in your coronary arteries, a brain bleed, a burst aneurysm, etc CPR won't magically fix it.

JonPace:Znuh: In before the farkers yelling that CPR is only 1% effective, etc. etc.

Yeah an anecdote about CPR working once proves it works every time.

The baby didn't even need CPR in the first place. The mother said the baby had been acting "off that day" and "kind of unresponsive to my smile" whatever that means. Then seconds after CPR was started he began screaming. If someone wakes up "seconds later" it's not because you started their heart again, it's because CPR hurts really bad. All she did was wake up her sleeping baby in a very violent way.

Nobody else finds it odd that there's no mention of what the supposed cause was?

JonPace:Znuh: In before the farkers yelling that CPR is only 1% effective, etc. etc.

Yeah an anecdote about CPR working once proves it works every time.

The baby didn't even need CPR in the first place. The mother said the baby had been acting "off that day" and "kind of unresponsive to my smile" whatever that means. Then seconds after CPR was started he began screaming. If someone wakes up "seconds later" it's not because you started their heart again, it's because CPR hurts really bad. All she did was wake up her sleeping baby in a very violent way.

Nobody else finds it odd that there's no mention of what the supposed cause was?

Who said it works every time, again?

Do you know what the treatment for secondary apnea is for laypeople? Yeah, CPR. And infants will get CPR with their hearts still beating if there is signs of poor perfusion and oxygenation, anyway.

Doesn't say anything there about checking for a pulse, notice.

JonPace:Oh and the reason CPR is claimed to "not work" is that it rarely does anything to fix the underlying issue that caused cardiac arrest in the first place. It works to get your heart pumping and that is all. If you have a blood clot in your coronary arteries, a brain bleed, a burst aneurysm, etc CPR won't magically fix it.

That's nice, but you really don't know what you're talking about promoting that viewpoint. The point of CPR is not to fix the underlying issue, but rather to buy time for advanced care to be able to solve that underlying problem.

Again, as I pointed out up thread, the problem with people touting that 1% BS is that the media lumps in ALL Causes of Cardiac arrest to get that. They don't take into account that a guy with a blocked coronary artery who has arrested due to Ventricular irritability leading into V.Tach or V.Fib who receives immediate bystander CPR has a 50% chance+ in some systems of survival. They don't take into account that Traumatic Cardiac Arrest, outside of very specific circumstances like drowning or commoto cordis, has an abysmal survival rate of <1%. Pediatrics who have a respiratory cause of arrest other than hypercapnea - like severe Asthma - have a high rate of survival with their airways managed. To use the conditions you linked, even if the collapse is due to a stroke or head bleed, in an area where that person can be at a primary neurological intervention facility within 30 minutes of the collapse they have a good survival rate as well.

tl;dr: Discouraging people from doing CPR when it's indicated based on their level of training doesn't make you a good human being. It makes you a person who kept someone from delivering life-saving care.

Alonjar:JonPace: Znuh: In before the farkers yelling that CPR is only 1% effective, etc. etc.

Yeah an anecdote about CPR working once proves it works every time.

The baby didn't even need CPR in the first place. The mother said the baby had been acting "off that day" and "kind of unresponsive to my smile" whatever that means. Then seconds after CPR was started he began screaming. If someone wakes up "seconds later" it's not because you started their heart again, it's because CPR hurts really bad. All she did was wake up her sleeping baby in a very violent way.

Nobody else finds it odd that there's no mention of what the supposed cause was?

The article says the baby was diagnosed with sleep apnea

Missed that line. Usually that means they didn't find anything. Either way that just confirms the baby was just woken up

Also, I'm sorry if that post comes off as rude to you, but it aggravates me when I see people who have suffered cardiac arrests that were witnessed, and no one did anything except call 911. The best chance for survival someone has is if someone starts CPR, even if it's not indicated by a professional level assessment, but is based on the layperson assessment.

I can count many, many situations where an otherwise viable patient was not by the time we got there.

No, CPR does not work all the time, like you pointed out. But it does work, and the people it does work on are generally thankful someone was altruistic enough to do it.

Huh? When did I say anything about checking for a pulse? My point was that if someone is having CPR performed on them, their chances of surviving with decent brain function are low. That has little to do with traumatic cardiac arrests. Alot of places don't even attempt CPR on those patients so I highly doubt they're skewing the statistics like you want to believe. If someone had a stroke or MI bad enough to put then into cardiac arrest, I don't care where it is, their chances of survival are nowhere close to what could be considered "good". I'm guessing you're still in school and not actually a working paramedic. Anyone with real experience in the field or an ER would tell you the same.

JonPace:I'm guessing you're still in school and not actually a working paramedic. Anyone with real experience in the field or an ER would tell you the same.

I've been out in the field for 9 years, you asshole. 8 in a high volume 911 system, 5 in Pediatric and Neonatal Critical Care Transport, and 2 in Adult Critical Care.

You're not arguing with me. You're arguing with American Heart and ILCOR. Take your personal problems up with them, and stop repeating flawed information to discourage people from doing CPR for people who will benefit from it.

JonPace:My point was that if someone is having CPR performed on them, their chances of surviving with decent brain function are low.

Really? You might tell the kid I coded for an hour, and who got another hour while he was crashed to ECMO that since he managed to walk out of the hospital.

JonPace:Alot of places don't even attempt CPR on those patients so I highly doubt they're skewing the statistics like you want to believe. If someone had a stroke or MI bad enough to put then into cardiac arrest, I don't care where it is, their chances of survival are nowhere close to what could be considered "good"

American Heart Association says all-cause CPR survival is currently 8 percent on average. Regional studies indicate it ranges from 6% to upwards of 30-40% out of hospital depending on the system looked at - with the best outcomes in Wake, NC and Seattle, WA being documented. It also says that immediate, bystander-provided CPR can double to triple survival rates when combined with current intervention therapies. Only 32% of people who arrest pre-hospitally even receive CPR prior to EMS arrival, which takes 5 to 20 minutes on average.

Ironic you mention MI, since it's one of the most treatable out of hospital reasons for arrest as it's typically caused by ventricular ectopy and irritability from ischemia, and typically presents with the heart in ventricular fibrillation or tachycardia.

JonPace:Alonjar: JonPace: Znuh: In before the farkers yelling that CPR is only 1% effective, etc. etc.

Yeah an anecdote about CPR working once proves it works every time.

The baby didn't even need CPR in the first place. The mother said the baby had been acting "off that day" and "kind of unresponsive to my smile" whatever that means. Then seconds after CPR was started he began screaming. If someone wakes up "seconds later" it's not because you started their heart again, it's because CPR hurts really bad. All she did was wake up her sleeping baby in a very violent way.

Nobody else finds it odd that there's no mention of what the supposed cause was?

The article says the baby was diagnosed with sleep apnea

Missed that line. Usually that means they didn't find anything. Either way that just confirms the baby was just woken up

The baby had been awake; the mother said she started to worry when the baby was unresponsive to her smile.

Sounds like they found the exact cause of the problem. Sleep apnea can also cause a person to stop breathing while awake. It can be dangerous enough for an adult to stop breathing for a few minutes, but a 2 month old baby doesn't have nearly the same lung capacity. I'd imagine there would be less oxygen available between breaths, so perhaps the condition could be considered potentially life threatening like it was in this case.

A lot of places have wildly different standards on who EMS will even attempt CPR on. That is the reason for the difference in survival statistics. I don't know if any systems that recommend CPR for traumatic arrests so their impact should be minimal. There's also plenty of syncopal episodes and seizures that receive CPR from bystanders also skewing the numbers. You're also having a great strawman argument where you think saying CPR is bad or that it shouldn't be done. All I'm saying is that when someone gets to the point that cardiac arrest is being preformed, they are not likely to survive. There are certain situations, like hypothermia and children, where survival rates will be higher, but the vast majority will not leave the hospital. All your anecdotal evidence will not change that. Your example of MI ignores the fact that there is still a blood clot there, and it is still restricting bloodflow and killing more of the heart. That's not even including things like DIC. If you believe there's over 50% chance of people surviving a medical cardiac arrest then I find it very hard to believe you've worked full time for that period of time

Just to be clear, unless the baby was choking, it is always inappropriate to perform CPR on a conscious person. Saying the baby has sleep apnea that caused it to stop breathing whole awake and had to be fixed by CPR is bordering on ridiculous. The hospital can't release him with a diagnosis of mom is crazy so they say he has sleep apnea. That happens all the time